The Resplendent Alter of Conquest and Greif
Category:LDDD Manses The Resplendent Alter of Conquest and Greif Abyssal Manse 5 Drawbacks: Maintenance 5, Hearthstone Rating 0, Uninhabitable 3 Powers: Outside Fate 4, Sentient 5, Greater Veil of Shadows 4, Factory Cathedral 5, Integrated Essence Artillery 4, Armored 2 Perception:5 Intelligence:5 Wits:5 Charisma:5 Manipulation:5 Lore 4, Occult 4, Craft(Earth) 4, Craft (Artifact) 5, Craft (Necrotech) 5, Craft (Fire) 3 Compassion 1, Temperance 2, Conviction 3, Valor 3, Willpower 6 From the surface the Resplendent Alter looks like nothing more then a pile of twisted, warped ruins. The manse itself is built underneath the shattered remains of a town destroyed by deathlord incursion, and although it is not technically a shadowlands, it is easily mistaken for one. Dark, oppressive clouds fill the sky above such that the sun never shines here. The town itself is eerily quiet -- buildings unlooked, bodies laying where they died with their equipment still there. No creatures, animal or sentient, willingly live here, with the exception of great flocks of ravens and crows who's wingbeats can occasionally be heard along with the echo'ing sound of warping metal. The town's defenders and their Essence Cannons still lie there, now broken and dead. The actual Manse itself is deep under the town -- the only entrance a tunnel under a twisted monolith, covered in symbols of Neverborn, located in the town square. This monolith seems to suck the light out of the air around it -- the only feature that was obviously added after the town's destruction. Underneath the town itself lies a manse of soulsteel, beat out of those who fell defending the surface. A twisted factory manse rests in the bowels of the earth, the Death Essence it draws bringing the factory to life so that it might forge weapons of war, to let the conquest begin anew. The manse is built with a central intelligence that speaks through a picograph on the monolith above -- represented as a face split down the middle, the left half that of a bold, conquering hero, the right that of a weeping woman. The manse's spirit is a spirit of war, living to bring death to it's creators enemies, an intelligence without mercy that knows very well that it was forged so that the entire world could burn, and it revels in that task. The manse -- for it answer to nothing but it's title or full name -- lives to craft weapons of war, and it is in this task that it finds it's greatest pleasures. It's greatest regret is that, immobile as it is, it will never know the pleasure of charging into battle itself, something it corrects by using it's Essence cannons to vaporize anyone who it feels threatens it in the slightest. It dislikes crafting utility or lifegiving items, but regrettably accepts that sometimes such actions are necessary to advance the war effort. The bodies that litter the town above are not, in truth, those of it's slain inhabitants, but necrotech servants created by the Manse to defend itself. Though most are warriors, several are workers, journeying out into surrounding lands and returning with raw materials -- either mined themselves, or taken from unfortunate convoys. The manse dislikes this entire process -- creating things strikes it as contrary to it's nature -- but it admits that having a steady supply of raw materials lets it serve it's creator much better. Although not very intellectual, it is extremely intelligent, and the disparity between it's philosophy of ravaging and destruction and the idea that it must create things to do this disturbs it. For the time being it simply avoids such thoughts, focusing on the tasks at hand.